We watched this last night. I’m afraid I dozed through bits of it, but in any case I didn’t find it as engaging as the book. Maybe I just love the book too much as it’s clearly considered a great film. This morning I did some tidying and cleaning and accounting, all very satisfying, then […]
Brexit march
I wish I could have gone to the Brexit march in Central London today. It’s something I feel very strongly about, and also entirely disempowered about, so it would have been good to have made that small gesture. But today was the day that someone’s ashes were to be confined to the ground, in the […]
City stroll
We met friends from Malaysia at the Quality Chop House, an old favourite, for lunch. They were doing Sunday lunch, which was very good (despite my disinterest in Sunday lunch) but not quite as spectacular as I remember it. Whether this is because of Sunday lunch or that it has gone down in quality, I […]
Guests
The guests have arrived – a young relative and her boyfriend. She works for a well known international body and he is a journalist. They went out for brunch with friends today and returned late for dinner and rather wobblier than I like – I find it a bit undignified, but can never quite disentangle […]
Nose to the grinder
I have spent the day working away, and got quite a lot done despite this ugly little cough of mine. At dinnertime, the English Teacher popped in with her two children who put on a show. They are very well behaved so it didn’t last long. There were supposed to be a pair of accountants […]
End of Europe
The only thing to do was to flee Skibbereen, so the next morning we took a taxi down to Baltimore (a fishing village whose claim to fame is that a few centuries ago its entire population was abducted by Barbary pirates). There was a ferry coming in as we arrived, so we hopped on it […]
Long road to Skibbereen
There is no easy way from Lough Carrig to Skibbereen, but that was our destination so we stumped up a euros for a long taxi ride, hoping we’d at least get a beautiful drive out of it. Unfortunately the taxi driver didn’t take the short, scenic route and instead went the long and uninteresting way […]
Gift of the gab
We have arrived at the Carrig House Hotel, a countryside hotel of the type they do particularly well across the British Isles, it seems: an old converted mansion in a beautiful spot (here, on the shore of a lake in County Kerry), with wallpaper and old baths, supremely comfortable beds but two taps instead of […]
Shadows ahead
The Gentleman Friend’s farewell party was yesterday, at the large and empty home of Green Thumb. Only a few people were invited: the Woodland Creature and Maitreyi, and Instagirl and her techie spouse. It went on too long for my taste as social events invariably do, but it was pleasant. There was one fine moment […]
Troubling weekend
Well, troubling is not quite the right word. It was a bit restless, I think I’m now close enough to the move to be both overwhelmed by what needs to be done and it’s still too early to take any action on it. Today I was very restless indeed. First we met the Woodland Creature […]